104 replies to this topic

[racingenglishcars]

OK, not first post, but now it's getting serious. 

I have for quite a while been very impressed with the amount of quality work being done on some of these cute and rather rusty cars.

 

Having had 3 Minis many years ago (1980) back in the colonies ('62 850 (red), '64 850 & '66 cooper with 1275), when I moved to this lovely European kingdom in the early 90's I expected to just go out and find a nice Mk1. But not a chance. All cars rust here in ways I never expected. I have now been here for 24 years and have just recently gotten a few Minis to work with.

 

Firstly the multi-coloured '64 and a couple days later, completely by chance a green '78. These are definitely projects!

I have been busy resto-modding my Frogeye for the past few years, but It was first when a colleague got involved with his own (blue) 64 Mini that everything got going.

 

 

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[racingenglishcars]

So Monday evening I came home to this:

It contains just about every body panel M-Machine makes plus a right side tank. I'm sure the car didn't need absolutely everything per say, but it will make it a bit easier with rust repair, plus I can use some of the old stuff on my own Mini.

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[racingenglishcars]

From it's humble beginnings as a field racer in Sweden, and the custom bodywork and instrument panel, I have begun to extensively modify on the racer heritage of this beauty.

I have removed the Weber box and replaced with a cutout from a replacement mini cowling from my neighbor. I have meticulously displayed the cutoff parts from my original racer in my circular bin. 

After repairing a bit of the inner wing I am now starting to remove the front floor panels

 

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[midridge2]

Looking good, keep coming with the pictures.

[racingenglishcars]

Tuesdays is when my friend Peter has time to attack. 

This time was - Floor Removal Day. OK, it isn't all out, but from the looks of the earlier repairs I'm quite surprised it didn't fall out by itself.

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[racingenglishcars]

The red one gets the front left floor removed, and a bit of the cross stiffener.

The front wings and front panel are original and only slightly damaged, mostly at the back edge from a small collision. I will try to retain these as I somehow feel it keeps the car a bit more worthy. It is difficult however to repair the inner parts with the wing in the way. 

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[racingenglishcars]

The dash panel was quite knackered from the time as a Swedish mark racer so that was the first I sorted, though not yet finished by any means.

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[racingenglishcars]

Between my wife's Thanksgiving party, Volvo V70 radiator and a friend's Sidecar floor, I only had a few hours of Mini floor work this weekend. Namely edging around the replacement floor section left front

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Edited by racingenglishcars, 28 November 2016 - 08:54 AM.

[racingenglishcars]

The largest part of the floor came out of Peter's Mini, leaving the front edge still attached to the foot panel.

Then came the task of removing the remaining spot welds. That is what was left after all the rust and repairs over the last decades.

What was left was apparently some large patches put on from the bottom specifically designed to hold all that loose rust in place.

 

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[racingenglishcars]

Meanwhile I did a few small repairs to my own floor edge to ready it for a new front floor repair panel.

Edited by racingenglishcars, 30 November 2016 - 09:19 AM.

[racingenglishcars]

Not much on my Mini last weekend. Though I did some stuff on the 51 Willys and the 53 motorcycle sidecar.

I just trimmed very nicely and installed the front left side floor section and test fitted the inner A panel, which still needs proper fitting.

I refuse to remove the front wings as they are factory installed. I will just repair the rear edge and clean up the rest. This just makes it a bit more difficult to install all the scuttle stuff.

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[racingenglishcars]

Another Tuesday night session on Peter's car.

 

Mostly trimming around the edges to allow the proper mounting of the new floor section.

 

We have pulled the rear seat and side bins out, leaving no more reference points for aligning the rear of the new floor.

First picture: What we have here is a side bin which includes a thoroughly responsible method of mounting the restraining belts, wood.

 

The body was initially aligned level, so we will use the front floor mounting points at the foot plate and gear shift tunnel to position the front, and a level to align the back. The back will then be hung to the re-enforcement structure pending new surrounding panels.

 

Before removing the last remnants of the floor's rear flange I measured distance to the garage floor. Different by 8 mil on the two sides, while the distance from the garage floor to the rear side windows was identical. Basically the floor previously in the car was not straight. Whether that was factory done or from all the crappy repairs isn't to guess. The new installation will be straighter I hope.

 

Another small problem is that when we started removing spot welds from the rear inner arches, support structure for the body is starting to disappear.

 

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[racingenglishcars]

Weekend, A-post welded up and rust protected internally. Fettled and fit the inner A-panel. Hammer and dolly'ed the front wing, cleaned surface rust and slight pitting with phosfor acid. Still haven't welded in the inner A-panel as I need to straighten out the scuttle first.

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[Vinay-RS]

You're working really quickly, it's really impressive! Do you have a deadline for the completion of these projects? 

[racingenglishcars]

Thanks.

I told my friend Peter that it would take a year. I actually have very little idea other than my Frogeye I did all myself, in my spare time and used many years. We have agreed that we work every tuesday on his car. I do my projects incrementally most evenings after my day job.

 

Yesterday we worked mostly on making clearance for and positioning of the new floor. A lot of time was used to ensure placement was as best possible. Of course we ran into some "typically British" problems. (It's probably unfair to say it like that)

 

The new floor was slightly twisted while un-stressed. Not a problem really but it means clamps had to be used on all four corners to hold it in place.

 

Nothing on the car was straight, actually making the floor look even better. 

 

We made mounting flanges to hold the new floor to the positioning cage, while the front rested on the foot panel. That itself was a problem since it wasn't really strong enough to hold the floor by itself, so we put a jack under it also.

 

The last big problem we had and hasn't yet been overcome is that the positioning cage is in the way of mounting the doors. We can't actually fit the floor correctly unless the doors are in place. We will either have to make modifications to the cage, or mount the floor temporarily for later adjustment, or borrow some doors from a race car which don't have the parcel bins. I think the last suggestion is our plan of action.

 

Some less than good news regarding my own car. 

While trying to fit the floor on the blue car, we also measured my car for the door opening, and when we tried fitting a door onto my car, it didn't fit well at all.

 

This car was purchased in parts and pieces and the doors supplied came from another car. (see the multi-coloured vehicle in my first post on this thread, and here) They had never been fitted and I therefore didn't know that the small dent in the rear of the front left (near side) wing and the slight dent on the windshield post were symptoms of a larger deformation of the door opening. I will have to take a porta-power and push the opening back into place before going any further.

 

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Edited by racingenglishcars, 14 December 2016 - 11:03 PM.